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Tag Archives: Seamus Heaney

Literary geniuses side-by-side in staff-room of local school

St Thomas’ Secondary Intermediate School was opened in September 1957. In April of that year, I remember the muscular caretaker, a local man, showing me around the empty, gleaming gymnasium and the new-smelling, loud tiled corridors. All the sounds of walking through an empty school that has no thumbprints feel oddly spooky. A cement mixer […]

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A genuine master in all senses of the word

I attended St Joseph’s Training College in Belfast in the early 1960s (then known as the Ranch). One of our English lecturers was Seamus Heaney. After graduating from Queen’s University he taught briefly in St Thomas’ Secondary School. The headmaster was the acclaimed short story writer Michael McLaverty who encouraged his writing. He was appointed […]

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Immortalised in poetry but not by the poets

Few of us associate Glengormley with poetry. Seamus Heaney used one word to describe the place: bleak. Padraic Fiacc lived in Glengormley

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